Review of GRANT
Chernow reimagines yet another famous American ... after over 900 pages, Grant's legacy is movingly and honestly reshaped.
I bought Grant by Ron Chernow shortly after its 2017 publishing date. It remained in my study for years. Through a drought, a Presidential election, a pandemic and two 49er losses in the Super Bowl. I deeply admired Chernow’s treatment of Alexander Hamilton – the long neglected, most underrated of our Founding Fathers. His biography inspired the brilliant musical that has done more for teaching Revolutionary America than any standard issue textbook, DeSantis approved or not … no small achievement in our increasingly distracted world. My gratitude should have been enough to launch me into the colorful and controversial career of maybe our greatest general and a two term President who is still mired in the middle of most Presidential rankings. Clearly Chernow enjoys his underdogs. Finally, after six years, I began to read its vast 970 pages this winter and with the help of a very serviceable audiobook edition, I finished four months later. Why did it take so long to begin Chernow’s opus?
The simplest answer is that I taught the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Grant Administration for 20 years. I have read different accounts of the war itself my whole life and, as most any teacher of American History would likely confess, Reconstruction is a quagmire of confusion in the great American narrative. Finally, I was a victim of the 150-year slur against Grant promulgated by historians of all ranks but particularly by those invested in reestablishing the glory of the Confederate Lost Cause. Chernow put paid to each of these reservations and thus was an enlightening and humbling reading experience for which I am grateful.
It is important that I go over what Chernow achieved in this magisterial work. The following, from minor to major, are the lessons I took from this long-delayed read. The definition of “lesson” in this case, is an event, fact, or emphasis that I would have embraced in my teaching days if I had read anything like Chernow’s book. The following “lessons” are not only historically instructive but provide perspectives I believe help illuminate our world today.
1. The United States was actually close to war footing with Britain in the early 1870s as America sought indemnity for the British construction of the lethal Confederate blockade runners. Through his brilliant Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, Grant initiated a first ever international arbitration in Geneva to break the impasse marking the start of the historic, if a bit hyperbolic, “special relationship” between America and Great Britain – a tortured and potentially incendiary one up to that point.
2. Mark Twain did not write Grant’s famous memoirs – considered to be among the finest of their kind ever written. Others also tried over the years to take credit. Grant, in his dying days, wrote every word with only the most cursory editing from Twain. Twain, a sincere admirer of the general, was the publisher … a role he leapt at, anticipating huge profits from the beloved Grant’s eagerly awaited memoir. It would, in fact, prove to be one of the bestsellers of the 19th century. (NOTE: I advise anyone interested in Grant, the Civil War and 19th century America to read this deeply literary memoir)
3. Grant may have been one of the most continuously popular Presidents ever. He certainly was the most popular American general ever. Despite being plagued by often unintended but self-induced scandal, ruthless political intrigue and the endless horrors of Reconstruction, Grant came as close as any President prior to FDR of seeking and very possibly winning a third term.
4. Grant was an alcoholic … a binge drinker who almost destroyed his career a few times prior to the Civil War. However, he rarely drank over the last 30 years of his life as a military leader and President in a world where alcohol consumption among white males far eclipsed what it is today. His abstinence was real and may have been his greatest personal achievement. His reputation as a drunken general and politician was the creation of political and military rivals, the opposition press and the Southern revisionists that rewrote Civil War history for almost 100 years. Grant endured a steady pounding of fake news, often deeply personal, for his entire professional career in the public spotlight.
5. Many military historians, particularly those Southern revisionists, stamped Grant as a “butcher” who was indifferent to his soldiers and the massive casualties suffered under his continuously successful campaigns in the West and, most famously, in the East against Lee. Much of this defamation began with the pro-Confederate Democrats in the North. People forget that the Union fought with a hand tied behind its back as close to 40% of the North did not support the war. Grant became their favorite target. Later, as Americans cottoned to a more romantic version of the Confederate cause (most obviously seen in the proliferation of Confederate monuments), Lee was enshrined at Grant’s expense. This has finally been addressed in only the last 10 to 15 years. Too often overlooked is Lee’s determination to continue fighting an increasingly desperate and futile campaign and in doing so committing thousands upon thousand of young men to their death in one of the ugliest causes (slavery) ever fought for in Western history. (Please … if ANYONE tells you the Civil War was fought over states rights, leave the table, seek fresh air and new companionship)
6. It is possible to make the statement that no President prior to LBJ and the civil rights legislation that he championed, put more on the line for the sake of African Americans than Ulysses S. Grant. Lincoln died before he had to face the crucible of Reconstruction, protecting forever his extraordinary legacy. FDR set up much of the scaffolding for future civil rights achievements but did little directly for African Americans. Until the Sixties, Presidents for political and personal reasons did little or nothing to dismantle the edifice of segregation and prejudice that replaced slavery. As this blood-soaked edifice arose amidst Reconstruction’s collapse, the ex-slaves only way out was increasingly President Grant. He paid particular attention to the slaves freed throughout his campaigns both in the West and the East, organizing shelter and food for a people deeply mistrusted and disliked by many of his Union contemporaries including both Sherman and Sheridan. He rolled back Andrew Johnson’s bigoted version of Reconstruction and held sway over its tenuous implementation until he felt that the black population was protected both politically and physically. As this protection gradually evaporated amidst a violence thoroughly forgotten in the traditional narrative, Grant insisted on sending in federal troops to prevent wholesale slaughter. Reconstruction died only when his party abandoned it, mortgaging its ideals for the profits of a booming economy and country. This failure is the original sin of the GOP and they can wave the Lincoln shirt as often as they want but it is pretty clear that today’s GOP would disgust both Lincoln and Grant.
7. Following on this line … the most lasting message from this huge book, is that our racial history is so much uglier than we ever want to face. A vote for Trump is, in fact, a vote to return to a sensibility that has always lain underneath much of the American id. It takes a strong stomach to read Chernow’s accounts of the rise of the KKK, the endless massacres and relentless terror promulgated by the great majority of Southern whites. The torch march in Charlottesville in 2017 was an homage to the horrors of a past too easily forgotten and dismissed. Remembrance is everything. It is our only insurance against the rhymes of history.
So much for the history lesson … stay cool wherever you are.
